Tax Law
Bailout Bill Approved by Senate Raises AMT Threshold
Posted Oct 2, 2008, 05:02 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The Senate has approved a $700 billion bailout bill for Wall Street that increases the threshold for the alternative minimum tax to protect an estimated 24 million families from an average tax increase of at least $2,000 each.
The provision is one of many tax breaks in the legislation, the Washington Post reports. Other measures give tax breaks for renewable energy, extend federal deductions for sales taxes in states that don’t impose an income tax, give homeowners who don’t itemize a $1,000 property tax deduction, and provide tax breaks to businesses.
Under the alternative minimum tax, individual taxpayers currently get an exemption of $33,750 and joint filers get a $45,000 exemption, according to a summary (PDF) of the tax provisions by the Senate Finance Committee. Personal credits are not currently exempt from the AMT. The Senate bill increases the exemptions to $46,200 for individuals and $69,950 for joint filers for 2008. The proposal also allows personal credits against the AMT.
The renewable energy provisions provide tax credits for solar installations for eight years, lift the $2,000 ceiling on the credit for residences, and extend the production tax credit for wind projects for a year, the Post reports in a separate story. Taxpayers would also get a credit of as much as $7,500 for electric or hybrid vehicles.
TaxProf Blog has other details of the bill, including a provision that would require broker reporting of customer basis in securities transactions.
Related Stories
- Some Law Firms Sue Banks, Some Don’t
Nov 19, 2008, 11:47 am CST - Former SG Helps eHarmony Reach Settlement Calling for Gay Matches
Nov 19, 2008, 11:24 am CST - Lawyer Charged with Selling Abusive Tax Shelters to Jenkens Clients
Nov 17, 2008, 11:52 am CST - Federal Prosecutor Named Bailout Watchdog
Nov 17, 2008, 09:08 am CST
Related Topics
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Comments
Posted by associate - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 20 hours, 37 minutes ago
Hey, if it’s a crappy bill, just slather it up with riders and pork, that’ll make it better right?
Disgusting.
The alternative energy credits should be made on a 20 year time table, and the AMT tax should be set at more like 200k and indexed for inflation, but NEITHER of those should be in a bill reconstituting the Soviet Union.
Posted by Laisseraller - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 6 hours, 34 minutes ago
The speed-of-light measurement was off by a factor of nearly 100.
The technology of the era was not up the task. With new technology came new calculations for the speed of light path traveled in a vacuum one meter length is 1/299 792 458 of a second.
One day a Zen master was walking in the jungle and came across a large man eating tiger charging behind him, in a split second the made the decision to run down the path to escape the man eating tiger, suddenly he was at the end of the path which was a edge of a shear drop cliff dropping a long way to jagged rocks, so below which would be a sure death. So, the Zen master was faced with being eaten by a large man eating tiger or jumping off the cliff to sure death! The Zen master looked at the edge and notice a small vine at the edge of the cliff growing over the edge, with a split second decision he decided to use the frail vine to get over the edge of the cliff. The frail vine began to give way and the Zen master was falling to sure death to the jagged rocks below, when he notice a fresh beautiful bright red strawberry growing on the cliff right in front of him, the last thought from the Zen master was this is got to be the best tasting strawberry he has ever had. The economy would be the Man-eating tiger and the frail vine is the rescue or bailout plan. The strawberry is the pork barrel attached to the rescue or bailout plan.
Local Entrepreneur is selling Caps & T-shirt with the logo “Got $700 billion?” http://www.cafepress.com/092308
Posted by Justin - 1 month, 2 weeks, 1 day, 22 hours, 47 minutes ago
First of all, Laisseraller is probably insane. Second, the AMT exemption increase is one of the best aspects of the bailout bill. In 2006, the IRS’s National Taxpayer Advocate’s report highlighted the AMT as the single most serious problem with the tax code. It essentially, for years, has counted anyone making over 100,000.00 a year as ultra-wealthy (which was kind of true when it was passed in 1969). My own father has had to pay this ridiculous penalty/punishment for a while now, and it nearly kills him every year. While most people are eargerly awaiting their tax refund every year, he’s sending a check for several thousand dollars back to the IRS. It hits him because he has a relatively high income (according to the code- 100-150K), but as a salesman he has to itemize many of his own expenses. The AMT views this as a wealthy individual employing tax shelters and, therefore, attaches the AMT penalty.